Profile: Lousiana Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco

• Protecting Life

"The two candidates for Louisiana governor agree on a lot of issues, but abortion isn't one of them," the Associated Press reported before the November 2003 election in which Blanco defeated her Republican opponent, Bobby Jindal, becoming only the second woman to serve as governor of a state in the Deep South. (The first, Gov. Lurleen Wallace, D-AL, tragically died of cancer only 16 months after taking office in 1966.)

Republican Bobby Jindal and Democrat Lt. Gov. Kathleen Blanco are Catholic and pro-life. But while Blanco thinks abortions should be allowed in cases of rape, incest and to save the life of the mother, Jindal does not favor abortions under any circumstances. Both favor the ban on late-term or so-called "partial birth" abortions that Congress recently approved and President George W. Bush plans to sign into law. Neither Jindal nor Blanco has [any] plans for abortion legislation.

As John Gizzi observed in Human Events, "Blanco ran dramatically to the right of her party on social issues, opposing gun control, abortion, affirmative action and benefits for gay couples."

In a post-election wrap-up in The Washington Post, Lee Hockstader described the candidates' differences as "primarily stylistic."

By most measures the two candidates were practically ideological soul mates, devout Catholics who oppose affirmative action, abortion, gun control and higher taxes while embracing steps to improve schools, health care and the state's anemic economy. By a narrow margin, Jindal was the more conservative, opposing abortion even in cases of rape and incest and in some instances when a mother's life is in danger.

Of course, the difference between a consistent stand against all abortion and a compromised stand that accepts the killing of some babies involves a matter of principle, whatever your local "pro-life" organization may—or may not—say. According to the Louisiana Right to Life 2003 Voter Guide, both Blanco and Jindal "responded 100% prolife."

In any event, the difference played a key role in Blanco's election campaign, noted the Kaiser Foundation's Daily Reproductive Health Report.

Blanco used "aggressive advertising" that criticized Jindal for his opposition to abortion "without exception" and raised other concerns to turn a "double-digit gap into a close but comfortable victory," the Times-Picayune reports....Both Jindal and Blanco are Roman Catholic and oppose abortion rights; however, Jindal opposes abortion in all cases and Blanco supports abortion rights in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of a pregnant woman. The Louisiana Democratic Party last week mailed a flier that said Jindal is "willing to let Louisiana women die" because of his position on abortion. The flier said, "Jindal's extreme position means the life of an unborn child would always outweigh concerns about the life of the mother and that doctors and their patients would have severely limited options in life-threatening medical emergencies." Jindal said that his position on abortion is "in line" with the Catholic Church and added that he does not oppose medical procedures used to save the life of a pregnant woman that would "indirectly" result in the termination of a fetus.

Blanco, a Cajun, of French descent, "picked up a large percentage of the women's vote, despite being an antiabortion Catholic," the Christian Science Monitor reported. It appears her attack on fellow Catholic Jindal for upholding the teachings of the Church and its divine Founder may have contributed to that tally.

• Defending Marriage and Safeguarding the Family

Last September, by a 4-to-1 margin, Louisiana voters ratified a constitutional amendment banning "same-sex marriage," Ed Anderson reports in The Times-Picayune.

The Louisiana Family Forum, a conservative family-issues group; the Roman Catholic bishops of the state; and hundreds of Protestant ministers had lined up behind the measure, urging their congregants to vote for it. Gov. Kathleen Blanco, a Catholic, said she was going to vote for it but did not participate in any campaign to help pass it.

Blanco's earlier history on the pro-family messure was less heartening, as this excerpt from a May 18, 2004, letter to his parishioners from St. Blog's own Fr. Bryce Sibley indicates.

In dealing with the amendment to our state constitution that would define marriage as a union between man and woman which would hopefully stop and "judicial activists" or other deleterious forces from approving gay marriages in our state, you may be distressed to know that our Governor Kathleen Blanco, a baptized Catholic, is against the amendment. According to The Daily Advocate, as debate on the amendment began on the Senate several days ago, all of the senators had on their desks a flier entitled "Blanco on Gay Marriage Amendment." The single-sheet contained Blanco quotes from two newspapers, in which she questions the need for the constitutional amendment as well as the damage it might do to the state's economy. Senate President Don Hines said he authorized the distribution with Blanco's knowledge.

"On another social issue," AP commented on the Blanco-Jindal race, "both [candidates] also question the need for a law to ban discrimination in the workplace against homosexuals. Blanco and Jindal say they oppose discrimination against anyone but don't think a new law is needed."

Gov. Blanco, however, recently signed an executive order banning discrimination in state government on the basis of "sexual orientation" that lead Rep. Jindal to request written clarification on whether the order will endanger state-financed services run by religious groups, Jan Moller writes in The Time-Picayune.

A three-page letter from Jindal to Blanco, his rival in the 2003 governor's race, says the executive order "may have the effect of overturning a hard-fought bipartisan precedent that has been established and reaffirmed over the course of nearly half a century."